Lincolnshire health trust winning the battle to combat superbugs

26/08/2015

Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust has demonstrated good practice across all areas of service for infection prevention and control, bosses say.

According the 2014/15 Infection Prevention and Control report, the trust’s performance standards in relation to reducing the numbers of avoidable infections or superbugs including MRSA, MSSA, Clostridium difficile and Escherichia coli, continues to be achieved.

A spokesman said: “For the reporting period, LCHS achieved the set trajectory of zero avoidable MRSA infections, a significant 62.5 per cent decrease in MSSA infections, an 83 per cent reduction in Escherichia coli related infections and of the six reported cases of Clostridium difficile related infections, 100% were determined unavoidable.

“The trust attributes its success in reducing infections to several factors, including a bespoke web-based surveillance system (DartICS), patient-led assessments of the care environment (PLACE), a comprehensive hand hygiene programme and mandatory infection prevention training for all LCHS employed staff.”

“Patient safety and quality care are at the forefront of everything we do, whether patients are receiving care in their own home, our urgent care centres, clinics or one of our community hospitals,” says Cheryl Day, LCHS Lead Matron for Infection Prevention.

“Protecting our patients from infection is vital to the quality of treatment we provide across LCHS, which is why we assure all of our staff have the resources, training and education needed to effectively prevent and control infections. We take great pride in the high standard of care we provide across all of our LCHS services and we will continue to assure infection prevention and control remains a top priority across the trust.”